Water retention property of coconut husk

Have you noticed the water absorption capability of coconut husk and its derived products such as coir dust, coco pith etc? Here is a cheap way to use this for your benefit. Let me describe what is generally suggested and I will come to the details later.

It is suggested that you make circular pits around your coconut trees and bury coconut husk there. This husk will retain the water for a long time and it will help your trees yield more nuts. Most of the sites that I found of the net agreed on the size of the trenches that you should make. You have to make about 0.5m deep and 0.5m  wide trench in a circular fashion around each tree. The radius is expected to be 2m. In this trenches, fill the coconut husk and cover them using soil.


Now, I have to admit that I have never done this myself. The information about this on internet is a bit hazy. Let me list the conflicting points that I have noticed below.
  1. Most of the images that I have found on the net (including the one I posted here) suggests that husk need to be placed such that outer convex side is towards the top. However, the reports that I found in Hindu mentions that it has to be placed concave side up.
  2. The same report suggests that a single layer of husk cam be placed inside the 2m radius with the convex side up for mulching
  3. The other conflicting information that I have found is about the number of husks needed in that trench. Some sites suggest using 1000 husks where are some others suggest 500+. Well, its anyway a matter of just finding out via experimenting.
  4. Next is about the frequency of doing this. However, these figures don't vary much. As I gather, you will have to repeat this husk burying operation every 5-7 years.
This is expected to increase the soil moisture to a great extend. This will help reduce the water used for irrigating the trees and help us in conserving the water. In fact, this link has information on water needed by coconut tree during different times of year. As a small boy, I have seen my grandfather irrigating the trees. As I remember, he was using much more water than what is mentioned here. These slides posted in slideshare (slide 52) shows that traditional watering boosts the yield by only 87% where as drip irrigation along with husk burying can yield 181% better harvest!


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